<p>I'm a junior and have two siblings at penn. I know this does not technically count as legacy, but i have heard it does help significantly. my friend's private college counselor told her that this year, penn stopped letting as many legacies in just based on the simple fact that they were legacy. basically penn looked more at the person's abilities and legacy was not weighted as much. is this true? is penn really putting less weight on legacies recently? if so, I'm assuming siblings won't count for ***** anymore. can anyone provide any insight on this? thank you</p>
<p>Copy and pasted from another thread, credit goes to 45 Percenter:</p>
<p>My understanding as a long-time alum who’s attended a lot of admissions and alumni sessions, and read what Penn has had to say about legacy admissions over the years:</p>
<ol>
<li><p>Single vs. double legacy is irrelevant. Once you’re a legacy (have at least one parent or grandparent who is a graduate of any school at Penn), it doesn’t matter how many additional alumni parents or grandparents you may have.</p></li>
<li><p>These days, at least 2/3 of legacy applicants–and perhaps even more at this point, since Penn has stopped publishing these statisitics–are rejected. Legacy status gives a slight advantage during the early decision round, all other factors (grades, SATs, ECs, recommendations, essays, etc.) being equal, but it will not make up for any “deficiencies” in an application, and is essentially not an advantage at all during the regular decision round.</p></li>
<li><p>Whether or not the parent/grandparent alum has donated to Penn is not a factor in the legacy “bump.” If a parent or grandparent has given a significant amount to Penn (6 or 7 figures), that might be taken into account in the admissions process, but that would make the applicant a “developmental” admit as they say in the admissions biz, which is not the same as a legacy admit.</p></li>
</ol>
<p>When Penn used to release statistics for legacy admissions, the acceptance rate for legacies was maybe 5 or 10 points higher than the overall acceptance rate for non-legacy appicants during the ED round (e.g., 30-35% for legacies applicants vs. an overall ED acceptance rate of 25%), and the RD acceptance rate for legacy applicants was not higher than the overall RD acceptance rate.</p>
<p>^ I’ll give you the address where you can send the royalty check. ;)</p>
<p>In terms of what the OP’s friend’s counselor told her about Penn admitting fewer legacies this year, the counselor may be basing that conclusion on the Penn alumni office having closed down its legacy admissions counseling service with the following statement:</p>
<p>
</p>
<p>[PAARC</a> Info](<a href=“http://www.alumni.upenn.edu/aca/]PAARC”>http://www.alumni.upenn.edu/aca/)</p>
<p>I haven’t heard that the admissions office admitted fewer legacies this year, but I DID hear earlier this school year–directly from the mouth of Penn President Amy Gutmann at an alumni gathering–that Penn is still strongly committed to its legacy admissions policy; BUT, she emphasized, only during the early decision round.</p>
<p>As the OP pointed out, siblings who go or went to Penn do not technically qualify an applicant as a legacy, but mentioning them in the “Why Penn” essay can certainly help to demonstrate the applicant’s familiarity with Penn and with what it means to be a Penn student.</p>
<p>Thanks for posting 45…not totally a shock, but still a surprise…the writing has been on the wall for a number of years now…</p>